A review by spcandybars
Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore

adventurous lighthearted reflective relaxing medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I really enjoyed this but also found myself a bit confused. Oona is immediately thrust into her future and the following novel chronicles 7 years of heartbreak and turmoil and a frustratingly difficult to escape future. She’s pushed into all of the hardest years of her life immediately after her 18th birthday and we somehow end the novel on the year you find yourself wanted to see through the most. I got lost a couple of times thinking about unlikely it feels for the Oona of whatever age to remember the events of the coming year that she already lived through enough to write letters to herself as warnings. It popped into my head frequently and made me question how her REAL first leap went. Or was there never a time where these events didn’t already happen?  I think I simultaneously wanted more and less. I wanted less of the spiral but more of the effort to change. Fewer back half chapters that just summarize good and bad years as a string of travels and more jumps to the relationship developing years that show both an effort to connect with her own future and understand her unlived past.  Her life appears to be cyclical so I don’t understand how she genuinely seems confined to the whims of destiny or fate.